Blaise Pascal: The Great Mathematician

Blaise Pascal was born on June 19, 1623 in Clermont-Ferrand, France and died August 19, 1662 of stomach cancer. Pascal was not only a great mathematician, he was also a man of great knowledge. Philosopher, mathematician, inventor, and scientific genius are just a few of the things he became in his life. Pascal helped create many things for this world as a whole, like when he invented the barometer, the hydraulic press, and of course (my personal favorite) the syringe. To the mathematical world he was a god, and he is most well known for creating ?Pascal?s Triangle? and the adding machine, otherwise known as a calculator (then it was called the ?Pascaline.?)

As a boy Pascal took his free time to study mathematics, specifically geometry. He was intrigued by the fact that so many things could be quite possibly perfect and so precise. He immediately began drawing his own conclusions in the world of geometrics. That was when he began to discover things such as ?Pascal?s triangle,? which everyone who took high school mathematics, specifically geometry, should recognize. He wrote papers on his theories of conic sections, which are defined in Algebra two, used in a higher sense of mathematics and geometry as well. He even published discoveries on his thoughts of vaccums. Vaccums were a crazy man?s playland back in the day.

The barometer, the triangle, conics, vaccum theories and the adding machine were all very big discoveries. The barometer, which we are all familiar with, is still used by meteorologists today! ?Pascal?s triangle? is used in today?s mathematical theories. The vaccum theories by Pascal, as well as Einstein are still considered today, so that goes without saying that his adding machine has part in the present as well.

But in relation to the computer world, the idea that is very close to the one we use today in computing, was ?addition inside a machine.?